Technology Affordance and Constraint Perspectives on Social Media Use in eParticipation : A Case Study in Indonesia

Paper I-V are not available as a part of the dissertation due to the copyright.This doctoral thesis explains the role of social media within eParticipation from the perspective of politicians in the Indonesian context using the Technology Affordance and Constraints Theory (TACT) as a lens. Previous research findings into citizens’ perceptions of social media in eParticipation have been ambivalent; namely, social media can both encourage and discourage the democratic process depending on where, when, and how it is used. Furthermore, there is little understanding of the role of social media in influencing decision-making in the democratic process from the politicians’ perspective. Thus, my research is focused on gaining a more in-depth understanding of the role of social media in eParticipation from perspective of politicians through three main research questions: (1) How do politicians use social media for eParticipation purposes? (2) What are the constraints of social media use within eParticipation? and (3) What are the conditions needed for social media affordance acutalization to take place?publishedVersio

Building civic architecture in cyberspace: digital civic spaces and the people who create them

At the same time as we are seeing ever increasing numbers of people actively using social networking sites, and growing evidence of increased participation in campaigning and digital activism, we are seeing a decline in democratic participation in the UK at both a national and local level. This thesis examines these two contrasting effects within the context of Local Government in the UK and explores what the impact might be at the neighbourhood level. The work discusses the influence of place based online activity on democratic decision-making Local Government and the ways in which traditional processes of decision-making, democratic participation and community engagement practice may need to change to reflect the upward pressure that is being exerted by citizen use of new technologies and adjust the way in which Local Government facilitates citizen participation in decision-making. The work develops the concept of Digital civic space as an alternative to eParticipation platforms and discusses how such spaces are being used to connect online activity with democratic processes at present and how present experience may be used to inform future developments. Employing an Action Research method, the research analyses three projects in order to examine the nature of the pre-existing participation online and the impact of creating online civic spaces to connect the participants both to each other and to local decision-makers. Design criteria are proposed which describe the necessary qualities of public-ness, openness, co-production, definition of place and identity and the thesis reaches conclusions as to how these criteria might better connect local resident with the democratic decision-making processes for their communities

An analysis of eParticipation in Scottish local authorities.

Consulting the public in policy making is a statutory obligation for Scottish local authorities but traditional forms of public participation such as public meetings are not considered to be effective for engaging a representative range of citizens. Developments in ICT have led to speculation about the impact of technology on citizen involvement in political participation with some arguing that eParticipation could attract a wider range of participants than offline mechanisms. This thesis presents the findings of an exploratory study examining eParticipation initiatives in Scottish Local Authorities. The focus of the research has been to identify the extent to which eParticipation is being used and the benefits and drawbacks of these methods. In addition, the research investigated the enablers and barriers to the development of eParticipation in local authorities. Rather than examining eParticipation as a discrete phenomenon, the research examined the broader consultation strategies of local authorities and what role, if any, eParticipation plays within it. A grounded theory approach was adopted which utilised a combination of qualitative methods. Further, an analytical framework was developed based on Dahls criteria for ideal democracy to develop a conceptual understanding of how eParticipation is being used in Scottish local authorities. While it was found that Scottish local authorities were using eParticipation tools, their use was rather limited and the vast majority of tools identified and analysed were electronic questionnaires. Respondents reported that they foresaw eParticipation tools being used more extensively in future but in combination with offline forms of participation and most did not report positive opinions on dialogic forms of eParticipation such as online discussions. The research findings show that eParticipation does not overcome many of the problems that lead to lack of public participation in policy making although some members of the public may to prefer to participate electronically for reasons of convenience

The Role of ICTs in Social Movements: The Case of the Honduran National Front Against the 2009 Coup

There is an important academic conversation happening about how social movements adopt, use, and configure Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for political participation. This dissertation contributes to that conversation by taking a holistic look at ICTs, throughout a social movement\u27s emergence and development, while considering its context, its organizational structures and sense-making processes. I explore the case of the Honduran National Front Against the Coup (NFAC), a relevant case due to its similarities with other movements, like the use of social media, the support from the international community and its geographically dispersed networks; but also, particular in its political and ICT context. Guided by the Contentious Politics Model (CPM) asked an overarching research question: What is the role of Information and Communication Technologies in the emergence and development of the National Front Against the Coup? I also asked three second-level questions: (1) How does the Honduran Resistance Movement relate ICTs to political Opportunity Structures? (2) What role do ICTs play in creating and supporting the movement\u27s organizational structures, and in preparing and carrying out visible movement episodes? (3) How does the NFAC use ICTs to shape its attitudes, identities and competences? I conducted a single embedded exploratory case study guided by the extended case method where I studied the NFAC in a sequence of interconnected time periods called Collective Action Framing Episodes (CAFEs). Data were reconstructive narratives from primary and secondary sources. The movement\u27s use of ICTs for mobilizing social support for their cause can be considered an improvised subversive response to the institutionalized political environment. The movement\u27s regional affiliates formed a loosely coupled extended organization, which allowed the affiliates a degree of autonomy to do their oppositional work while remaining fully aligned with the movement\u27s priorities. ICTs allowed the movement to broadcast its messages across the network to socialize the affiliates and ensure they were all on the same page. This lose confederation, coordinated through ICTs allowed the NFAC to dynamically reconfigure and rearrange its regional affiliates as needed. I found instances of resourcefulness and improvisation, both in the way individual media platforms were used, and in the way these platforms were combined and recombined to move ahead. Thus, the intellectual contribution of this study is twofold: The first one is an expansion of the CPM (Contentious Politics Model). I propose that ICTs don\u27t drive revolutions, but neither are they simply tools. There is a dynamic relation as environmental conditions (OS) like policies, institutions, ICT ownership, media centralization, shape the way social movements configure ICTs, and ICTs configurations by social movements can influence environmental conditions. The same way ICT configurations can be determined by he availability, collaboration and connectedness of civil society organizations within the movement (MS), and their relations can be influenced by ICT configurations. Therefore, by playing a reflexive role in the process of frame creation, ICTs are embedded in every level of the social movement emergence and development. The second contribution is an operative framework and analytical tool to study the interactions between social movements, institutions, and ICTs. The model uses CAFEs (Collective Action Framing Episodes), a composed construct that allows integrating several levels of analysis into one unit of analysis

Participation Space Studies: a socio-technical exploration of activist and community groups’ use of online and offline spaces to support their work

Participation Space Studies explore eParticipation in the day-to-day activities of local, citizen-led groups, working to improve their communities. The focus is the relationship between activities and contexts. The concept of a participation space is introduced in order to reify online and offline contexts where people participate in democracy. Participation spaces include websites, blogs, email, social media presences, paper media, and physical spaces. They are understood as sociotechnical systems: assemblages of heterogeneous elements, with relevant histories and trajectories of development and use. This approach enables the parallel study of diverse spaces, on and offline. Participation spaces are investigated within three case studies, centred on interviews and participant observation. Each case concerns a community or activist group, in Scotland. The participation spaces are then modelled using a Socio-Technical Interaction Network (STIN) framework (Kling, McKim and King, 2003). The participation space concept effectively supports the parallel investigation of the diverse social and technical contexts of grassroots democracy and the relationship between the case-study groups and the technologies they use to support their work. Participants’ democratic participation is supported by online technologies, especially email, and they create online communities and networks around their goals. The studies illustrate the mutual shaping relationship between technology and democracy. Participants’ choice of technologies can be understood in spatial terms: boundaries, inhabitants, access, ownership, and cost. Participation spaces and infrastructures are used together and shared with other groups. Non-public online spaces, such as Facebook groups, are vital contexts for eParticipation; further, the majority of participants’ work is non-public, on and offline. It is informational, potentially invisible, work that supports public outputs. The groups involve people and influence events through emotional and symbolic impact, as well as rational argument. Images are powerful vehicles for this and digital images become an increasingly evident and important feature of participation spaces throughout the consecutively conducted case studies. Collaboration of diverse people via social media indicates that these spaces could be understood as boundary objects (Star and Griesemer, 1989). The Participation Space Studies draw from and contribute to eParticipation, social informatics, mediation, social shaping studies, and ethnographic studies of Internet us

European E-Democracy in Practice

This open access book explores how digital tools and social media technologies can contribute to better participation and involvement of EU citizens in European politics. By analyzing selected representative e-participation projects at the local, national and European governmental levels, it identifies the preconditions, best practices and shortcomings of e-participation practices in connection with EU decision-making procedures and institutions. The book features case studies on parliamentary monitoring, e-voting practices, and e-publics, and offers recommendations for improving the integration of e-democracy in European politics and governance. Accordingly, it will appeal to scholars as well as practitioners interested in identifying suitable e-participation tools for European institutions and thus helps to reduce the EU’s current democratic deficit. This book is a continuation of the book “Electronic Democracy in Europe” published by Springer

Political Social Media Sites as Public Sphere: A Case Study of the Norwegian Labour Party

Political interest and voter turnout is in steady decline. In an attempt to renew interest for political matters, political parties and governments have attempted to create new digital meeting places, with the hope that social media can contribute to renew the public sphere and thereby increase political awareness in the population. Communicating in new media demands adaption to the culture of the new medium, and the networked nature of the Internet poses challenges to old ways of thinking as we can no longer talk about one public sphere but rather a networked public sphere consisting of a multitude of discussion spaces. In this article, we contribute to the understanding of the networked public sphere and online political communication through a case study of MyLaborParty.no, a social network run by a Norwegian political party. Our findings indicate that political parties can create a thriving part of the networked public sphere, as long as they invite opposing voices to the discussion, communicate using the genres which facilitate discussion and have users or moderators who help spread ideas between discussion spaces